It’s a long way from the cobbled streets of Chorley to Gibraltar’s famous Rock Hotel.
One is a Lancashire mill town famed for flat caps and flattened fruitcakes, while the other calls itself an ‘icon of hospitality and first-class service’ boasting ‘colonial heritage and art deco style with all the contemporary comforts our discerning guests have come to expect’.
The Rock has been a star-studded hangout for decades. After the war, it hosted the likes of Winston Churchill, Errol Flynn, Alec Guinness, John Lennon, Sean Connery and Roger Moore.
In more recent years, Bob Geldof, King Charles, Prince Edward, and Hollywood stars Henry Cavill and Gemma Arterton have walked through its botanic gardens or sipped cocktails on its Wisteria Terrace.
Yet these two very different places have an unlikely celebrity connection: they are both favourite stomping grounds of Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the 158th Speaker of the House of Commons.
In recent years Hoyle, the MP for Chorley famed for his booming Lancastrian voice and proud working-class roots, has made an annual pilgrimage to the luxury hotel, which boasts Gibraltar’s largest outdoor swimming pool.
He always flies via British Airways and its partner airlines, with an entourage that includes two or three aides.
They refuse to travel in anything apart from business class and usually stay for three nights in early December, often choosing to dine at The Rock, which offers the ‘exclusive fine dining’ restaurant Alfred’s.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle (pictured), the 158th Speaker of the House of Commons, always flies via British Airways and its partner airlines, with an entourage that includes two or three aides
In May 2023, Hoyle stayed at Ottawa’s Chateau Laurier (pictured), a hotel which boasts of being ‘one of the nation’s most recognisable landmarks
The winter sun doesn’t come cheap, though. Since 2021, Hoyle’s trips to Gibraltar have cost a total of £15,707.27. And the people picking up the tab? That would be you and me.
The Speaker, who is 67, has billed the taxpayer precisely £6,616.54 for business-class flights to the destination, paying between £397 and £617 for each ticket (EasyJet fares start at £28.99).
Another £7,396.50 has gone on accommodation. The remaining £1,694.23 went on food.
Quite why the British exchequer has agreed to cover the entire bill for these annual jollies is unclear.
The principal reason for the trips seems to involve attending an annual graduation ceremony at the University of Gibraltar, which made Hoyle its chancellor in 2020. Some other duties are then tacked onto the agenda.
Yet the University’s only financial contribution came back in 2022, when it paid for Sir Lindsay’s business class flight and hotel room (leaving UK taxpayers to pick up the tab for his two aides).
You and I have covered the entire cost every other year.
Speaker Hoyle’s £15,000-worth of trips to the Rock, as it happens, is a drop in a sun-dappled ocean.
Since 2021, Hoyle’s trips to Gibraltar have cost a total of £15,707.27 (Pictured: Hoyle)
When Hoyle was required to visit Canberra for a conference in 2023, he decided that for a trip to Australia mere business class would not suffice, and booked himself in first (File image)
For since pandemic restrictions eased in October 2022, he’s enjoyed at least 19 ‘non-regular’ overseas jaunts. That globetrotting has cost the public the astonishing sum of £250,000.
Such expenditure is entirely unprecedented: it took his predecessor John Bercow a decade to notch up an equivalent bill.
But when you look at how the money has been spent, it’s also unsurprising. For the extent of Sir Lindsay’s extravagance once he passes passport control is, at times, breathtaking.
Figures obtained by the Mail via Freedom of Information legislation this week have revealed he has spent an extraordinary £180,000 on airfares, never agreeing to travel in economy or premium economy class, even for journeys of little more than an hour.
Hops to Dublin or the northeastern Italian city of Verona, where budget airlines can fly you for between £30 and £40, therefore cost taxpayers £524 and £1,161 respectively.
And for longer trips, the bill was steeper still.
Last summer, for example, it cost taxpayers £15,805 to send Hoyle and his team to the Cayman Islands, the sun-drenched British Overseas territory in the Caribbean, one of several exotic locations he chose to visit (mysteriously, the trips rarely seem to take in less glamorous destinations).
A visit to the Atlantic overseas territory of St Helena, with a ‘transit stop’ in South Africa that for some reason lasted four days, clocked up £21,321 in air fares, plus an extra fee of £504 to bring one of the Speaker’s suitcases on a connecting flight.
Figures obtained by the Mail this week have revealed Hoyle (pictured) has spent an extraordinary £180,000 on airfares
Records also reveal an astonishing £4,400 bill at Crown Chauffeurs, who provide a ‘VIP limousine service’ in the city and ferried him around in an air-conditioned Audi (File image)
When Hoyle was required to visit Canberra for a conference in January 2023, he decided that for a trip to Australia mere business class would not suffice, and booked himself in first.
That cost £11,589 for a return flight, with the total bill for his party of three coming in at £33,403.
The Australian flag carrier Qantas promised ‘a journey of unsurpassed luxury’ in the cabin, where guests are served gourmet food ‘prepared onboard and made to order with the finest ingredients’ and waited on by ‘sommeliers in the sky [who] can advise on our selection of award-winning wines and champagne’.
A spokesperson for Hoyle has sought to justify his luxury flight habit – which has earned him the nickname ‘Long-haul Lindsay’ – by arguing he has little choice but to travel via business and first: ‘to ensure he is able to work effectively while travelling, because the visit starts as soon as he lands’.
In a statement, they add: ‘While getting value for money is obviously a key consideration, business-class flights may be taken in order to be prepared for a busy series of engagements that get underway immediately upon arrival or upon return.
It also allows for working with a small team of officials or subject specialists during the flight.’
Not every modern politician agrees. When I flew back last year from Zurich with then foreign secretary David Cameron, who’d been attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, he chose to go in economy.
The claim by Hoyle’s office that ‘business-class flights may be taken’ (i.e. only in some circumstances) seems highly questionable, given that he has never chosen to travel in anything less.
Gibraltar’s famous Rock Hotel (pictured) has been a star-studded hangout for decades.
In recent years, Bob Geldof, King Charles (pictured), Prince Edward, and Hollywood stars Henry Cavill and Gemma Arterton have stayed at the Rock Hotel in Gibraltar
So too does the contention that ‘value for money’ plays any role whatsoever in the Speaker’s scheduling.
In fact, I can reveal that he refuses to properly shop around for cheap flights, choosing instead to only travel with British Airways and partner carriers who are part of the ‘Oneworld Alliance,’ which then allows him to earn air miles under the Avios scheme.
‘Mr Speaker tries to use Oneworld Alliance [a consortium of British Airways and 12 other carriers] wherever possible as he strongly believes in supporting the national flag carrier,’ says a spokesperson, adding that his air miles ‘are not used for personal flights; these are kept under review and they are able to be used to offset the costs of future business travel’.
For some reason, Speaker Hoyle’s vast Avios collection, assembled over the course of more than two years, has yet to be used to ‘offset costs’.
Perhaps taxpayers will see the benefits of it at some future date. Meanwhile his patriotic determination to support our ‘national carrier’ seems not to have prevented his office from booking trips, on various occasions, with rivals including Qantas, Japan Airlines, Royal Jordanian, Qatar Airways, Emirates and Singapore Airlines.
Shameless extravagance extends to Sir Lindsay’s hotel stays, too.
Take the trip he took to the Far East in October 2022 to attend a 48-hour summit of G20 parliamentary speakers.
Hoyle ended up spending nine days on the road, staying first at the Fairmont Hotel in Jakarta, which advertises ‘elegance and sophistication in the heart of the Indonesian capital’ and promises its guests ‘the finest in luxury and convenience’.
Hoyle (pictured) chooses to only travel with British Airways and partner carriers who are part of the ‘Oneworld Alliance,’ which then allows him to earn air miles under the Avios scheme
Hops to Dublin or the northeastern Italian city of Verona (pictured), where budget airlines can fly you for between £30 and £40, cost taxpayers £524 and £1,161 respectively
When the summit ended, he travelled on to Singapore, bunking at the Shangri-La, a five-star sanctuary ‘nestled within 15 acres of tropical landscaped gardens’ where ‘guests are warmly embraced by the hotel’s distinct service and smiles’.
His room there cost £597 per night.
On his aforementioned trip to Australia, for a January 2023 conference for ‘Speakers and Presiding Officers’ from Commonwealth countries, Hoyle was billeted amid the ‘exquisite rooms and spacious suites’ of the five-star Hotel Realm.
During that three-night trip, he also clocked up a £318 bill at Wild Duck, the Australian capital’s most upmarket Chinese restaurant.
Records also reveal an astonishing £4,400 bill at Crown Chauffeurs, who provide a ‘VIP limousine service’ in the city and ferried him around in an air-conditioned Audi.
Quite why this was necessary, given that Hoyle’s hotel was 400 yards from the conference venue, and Canberra is well supplied with taxis, is anyone’s guess.
Fast-forward to May 2023, and Hoyle could be found at Ottawa’s Chateau Laurier, a hotel which boasts of being ‘one of the nation’s most recognisable landmarks’.
Hoyle’s room there cost a quite astonishing £893 per night.
On his trip to Australia, for a January 2023 conference, Hoyle (pictured) was billeted amid the ‘exquisite rooms and spacious suites’ of the five-star Hotel Realm
During September’s G7 Speaker’s Conference in Italy, Hoyle’s group stayed at the Hotel Due Torri in Verona (pictured), a five-star hotel ‘occupying an historic 14th century palace’
Intriguingly, cheaper accommodation was available in the same building: his two aides stayed in Chateau Laurier’s less expensive rooms, at a cost of £636 and £424.
Indeed, despite his egalitarian background in the Labour Party, Hoyle routinely billets staff in smaller and cheaper rooms than the grander ones he seems to prefer.
On a trip to Dublin, where he stayed at The Samuel Hotel in September 2023, Hoyle’s nightly rate was 315 euros while his two bag-carriers billed 265 euros each.
In Jakarta, his much larger room cost almost twice those of his companions.
Hoyle’s office did not elaborate on the rationale for this practice. Perhaps, one Westminster insider jokingly speculated this week, the Speaker requires the extra space for his ego.
One baffling feature of Hoyle’s itineraries is his habit of booking luxury hotels in cities where the UK government also maintains hugely expensive diplomatic properties, which can in theory be used by visiting politicians, royals and other dignitaries.
Canberra, for example, boasts a large High Commissioner’s Residence named Westminster House, right next to the venue for the conference Hoyle attended.
Singapore has a palatial High Commissioner’s residence called Eden Hall.
On a trip to Dublin, where he stayed at The Samuel Hotel in September 2023, Hoyle’s nightly rate was 315 euros while his two bag-carriers billed 265 euros each. Pictured: Hoyle
Hoyle managed to run up a 400 euro bill for food at a bistro ‘personally designed by Gualtiero Marchesi (pictured young), the renowned Italian chef considered the founder of the new Italian cuisine’
In Ottawa, there is a Victorian gothic revival pile called Earnscliffe, adjacent to the country’s parliament, which Hoyle was visiting when he instead plumped for a £900-a-night hotel.
It’s not entirely clear why the Speaker failed to make use of these properties, though a spokesman did state that when attending summits and similar events ‘the choice of hotel is often designated by conference organisers’.
Other opulent hotels to have hosted this lifelong socialist – Chorley-born Hoyle’s father, Doug, was also a Labour MP – include the Taj Mahal, a ‘luxury five star deluxe’ pile in New Delhi, the Four Seasons in Amman (‘a beacon of elegance’) and the Westin Grand Cayman, which he visited at the invitation of the territory’s parliament in July last year.
His rooms at that resort ‘nestled on the widest stretch of Seven Mile Beach’ cost British taxpayers £679 a night, plus a $75 ‘compulsory resort charge’.
Perhaps the most eye-watering bill came from September’s G7 Speaker’s Conference in Italy, to which he decided to take no fewer than four members of staff.
The group stayed at the Hotel Due Torri in Verona, a five-star hotel ‘occupying an historic 14th century palace’ where ‘the superb quality of the furnishings and the professional service are highly valued by its devoted international clientele’ and rooms are decorated with ‘period furniture and hand-crafted marble in warm tones, mosaic decorations and refined textiles’.
At 756 euros a night, we must hope the textiles in Hoyle’s room were very refined indeed.
His staff made do with lesser rooms of 675 euros and 585 euros. He also managed to run up a 400 euro bill for food at the venue, which has a bistro ‘personally designed by Gualtiero Marchesi, the renowned Italian chef considered the founder of the new Italian cuisine’.
Other opulent hotels to have hosted this lifelong socialist include the Westin Grand Cayman (pictured) which he visited at the invitation of the territory’s parliament in July last year.
The Mail’s revelations about Hoyle’s spending have outraged MPs. Yet such is the power a Speaker wields that none are willing to criticise him publicly. Pictured: Hoyle
The Mail’s revelations about Hoyle’s spending have outraged MPs. Yet such is the power a Speaker wields that none are willing to criticise him publicly.
They can’t even put in an anonymous complaint to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, since that official has no power to discipline a Speaker.
In any case, Hoyle, who took office in 2019 – and promptly saddled taxpayers with a £7,500 bill for replacing mattresses and bedding in Speaker’s House, the magnificent grace-and-favour home he shares with second wife Catherine – seems adamant that globetrotting with no expense spared is an essential part of the job.
A spokesperson says his job is not just to chair Parliamentary debates but also ‘to be an ambassador for the House of Commons externally.
This includes representing the House on the international stage, especially at a time when international affairs are so central to political life, and dialogue between legislatures and parliamentarians plays an ever-important role’.
They added that his trips ‘had tangible outcomes and demonstrate the important role of the Speaker’s soft power in international diplomacy’.
Tangible outcomes come at quite a price, though. Exactly two years ago, Hoyle for example travelled to Los Angeles, to give a single talk to politics students at the University of Southern California.
The university is an exclusive private institution where fees cost almost $70,000-a-year. It therefore (quite rightly) agreed to pay a business class airfare for Hoyle and one assistant, along with the bill for their four-night stay in the city’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel.
British taxpayers were still saddled with a hefty bill, though. For Hoyle insisted on travelling with a second bag-carrier, which the university wouldn’t pay for.
That staffer’s hotel bill alone weighed in at a cost to the taxpayer of more than £3,000.
Not content with that, Hoyle then booked a Chevrolet Suburban people-carrier from a company called ‘Limousine Connection’, whose uniformed chauffeurs ‘deliver you in style’.
The party’s transportation costs, in a city where most visitors (aside from Hollywood stars) travel in affordable Uber private hire cars and yellow taxis, came to a whopping £3,169.
In total, the entire trip ended up costing the British public £6,389.30.
Its ‘tangible outcome’ was that Sir Lindsay then addressed a small room full of students for one hour and ten minutes, in a lecture that was then uploaded to YouTube where it has clocked up a mere 300 views over the past two years.
To put things another way, you and I shelled out £91 for every minute (or £1.50 for every second) he chuntered away.
An astonishing use of our hard-earned cash, which makes the globetrotting MP for Chorley – quite literally! – the most expensive Speaker in history.
